Since 2003 when he was appointed as a special adviser to the deputy governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has managed to be close to the corridors of power in Lagos State.
Initially appointed the special adviser on corporate matters to the then deputy governor, Femi Pedro, Sanwo-Olu was later moved to then-governor Bola Tinubu’s office as the special adviser on corporate matters.
Sanwo-Olu served as commissioner for economic planning and budget, then commerce and industry, and then establishments, training and pension.
In 2016, he was appointed the chief executive officer of the Lagos State Property Development Corporation.
Two years later, he was nudged into the corridors of power, backed and bankrolled by those who call the shots in Lagos politics, led by Nigeria’s current President Bola Tinubu, to challenge the incumbent Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.
Defying calls to relinquish the party’s ticket before the primaries, Ambode went into the contest against Sanwo-Olu and was loudly trounced by the latter.
In the 2019 governorship election, Sanwo-Olu also trounced his main challenger, Jimi Agbaje of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to become the governor of Lagos.
Now in his second and final term as governor of the megacity, Sanwo-Olu, 58, is racing against time to leave a befitting legacy in Africa’s fourth largest economy.
The Africa Report takes a look at some members of his tightly-knit circle of loyalists, confidantes, and mentors who have helped him run Lagos as well as propping up his political base.
Oluremi Tinubu
Nigeria’s first lady, Oluremi Tinubu, is, perhaps, the most influential of the Lagos governor’s inner circle.
Insiders say it was her who recommended Sanwo-Olu as the perfect replacement for Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, when the latter fell out with Tinubu and the APC leadership in the state.
She was also instrumental to Sanwo-Olu securing the APC ticket to run for governor the second time.
And when the governor clashed with Speaker Mudashiru Obasa in the early days of the former’s second term, it was the first lady who, again, stepped in to secure her protégé’s position.
Most of the governor’s inner circle belong to the first lady’s political structure.
Tokunbo Wahab
A lawyer, Tokunbo Wahab, the commissioner for environment, is one of the closest persons to the governor. They are both members of Remi Tinubu’s political structure.
Wahab, 51, was an APC governorship aspirant ahead of the 2015 election, but he lost the party’s ticket to Ambode.
Wahab served as the special adviser on education to Sanwo-Olu between 2019 and 2023.
After the governor won his reelection, Wahab was pencilled down to be the chief of staff after speculations arose that Tayo Ayinde would not return.
Ayinde, however, returned to his post. Wahab was then moved to one of the most strategic and important dockets, the ministry of the environment.
Femi Pedro
It was in Femi Pedro’s office that Governor Sanwo-Olu cut his political teeth in 2003 and they have remained close ever since. It was Pedro who reportedly recommended Sanwo-Olu for elevation as a special adviser to the governor.
Pedro and Sanwo-Olu first crossed paths during their time in the private sector when they worked in the banking sector.
After he was impeached as Tinubu’s deputy in 2006, he defected to the Labour Party and then to the Peoples Democratic Party. He aspired to be governor in the two parties.
He returned to the APC in 2013 and his impeachment was annulled by the Lagos House of Assembly barely two years later.
An economist and co-founder of the now defunct First Atlantic Bank (later FinBank), Pedro is married to a high court judge.
He is credited as the brain behind Lagos’ PSP system, the waste management currently used in Lagos.
Pedro is currently the chairman of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).
Wahab Alawiye-King
Wahab Alawiye-King served as an assistant director-general in Sanwo-Olu’s governorship campaign ahead of the 2019 governorship election.
After his victory in the election, Sanwo-Olu appointed Alawiye-King the executive chairman of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board.
Born in 1963 on Lagos Island, Alawiye-King had his tertiary education in the United States before returning to Nigeria to join politics.
He represented Lagos Island Constituency 1 in the Lagos State House of Assembly between 2007 and 2011, and Lagos Island Constituency 2 between 2011 and 2015.
Alawiye-King is currently serving as the senior special assistant on public affairs and strategy in the office of the First Lady.
Wasiu Sanni-Eshilokun
Wasiu Sanni-Eshilokun succeeded First Lady Oluremi Tinubu as the senator representing Lagos Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly.
Prior to that, he served three terms in the Lagos State House of Assembly, two of them as deputy speaker.
Like Alawiye-King, Sanni-Eshilokun is often in the same circle as the governor: the trio hail from Lagos Island.
During the last general elections, the first lady was instrumental to Sanni-Eshilokun’s emergence as the APC flag bearer in the senatorial election
For instance, during the last general elections, the First Lady was instrumental to Sanni-Eshilokun’s emergence as the APC flag bearer in the senatorial election. Alawiye-King served as the head of his campaign council. Sanwo-Olu provided the power of incumbency as Lagos governor.
Sanni-Eshilokun began his political journey in 1992 when he was elected vice chairman of the Social Democratic Party in his ward in Isale Eko, Lagos Island.
He represented Lagos Island Constituency 1 between 1999 and 2003. In 2004, Governor Bola Tinubu appointed him as his senior special assistant on legislative and political matters.
He also served two terms as executive chairman of Lagos Island local government, from 2008 to 2014. He returned to the Lagos House of Assembly one year later and served two more terms before picking up the senatorial ticket.
Kamal Bashua
Bashua is also an influential member of the governor’s Lagos Island clique.
He was elected the chairman of Lagos Island East local council in 2011, and reelected in 2014.
Bashua, a youth leader in Lagos Island during the 12 June political activism, served as a member of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s inauguration committee after he won the 2019 governorship election.
Jide Jimoh
Although a former chairman of Yaba local council, Jimoh faced stiff opposition after President Bola Tinubu nominated him as the Lagos representative in the Federal Civil Service Commission.
A group of Lagos indigenes opposed the nomination, saying he was an indigene of Kwara State and not Lagos.
Barely one week after his nomination, the president dropped him. It was unclear if his dropping was due to the opposition.
But JJ, as he is popularly known, has lived all his political life in Lagos.
In 1990, he was elected a councillor in Lagos Mainland local government on the platform of the Social Democratic Party. He immediately rose to become the deputy speaker of the council.
Jimoh, 62, served two terms in the Lagos House of Assembly before winning the election to represent Lagos Mainland in the House of Representatives where he also served two terms.
Tajudeen Ajide
In 2017, when Tajudeen Ajide’s name was removed as a chairmanship candidate during an APC primary election in Surulere, all hell broke loose. Party supporters laid into one another in the ensuing free-for-all. The chairman of the election committee was also assaulted and almost stripped naked.
Such was the influence of Ajide in Surulere, his local government, where he served as the council chairman and where he is referred to as ‘the mayor.’
His administration was, however, riddled with allegations of graft and high handedness, resulting in his impeachment by his councillors. He was subsequently suspended from office by the Lagos House of Assembly.
The lawmakers reinstated him weeks later.
At the time, Ajide accused Femi Gbajabiamila, who was a House of Representatives member representing Surulere, as being behind his ordeal.
Gbajabiamila is currently President Tinubu’s chief of staff.
Ajide was married to a daughter of Oba Adeyinka Oyekan (the late Lagos monarch); his wife, however, passed away in 2016.
A football lover (his younger brother, Ganiyu, played for the national team), Ajide played for First Bank Football Club in Lagos and Colchester United in England in the 1980s.
He was educated at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Belford University and Westminster University In England. Ajide holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Liverpool.
Idris Aregbe
The youthful son of the APC leader, Olaide Agaba, Idris Aregbe gradually grew his profile in Lagos politics through his involvement in youth-oriented programmes.
He is the convener of a string of political and cultural organisations: Our Lagos, Your Lagos, a grassroots mobilisation project; My Heritage, My Pride & Sisi Oge, an annual cultural event that hosts a popular beauty pageant; and Re-drive Nigeria, a youth awareness project; among others.
Olusanya and Aregbe are regarded by Sanwo-Olu’s associates as among the new generation of political technocrats being groomed by the governor
Aregbe, 42, holds a political science degree from the University of Lagos and is a popular Yoruba culture ambassador, which he propagates through his annual Culturati event.
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, Aregbe was appointed the south-west secretary, national youth mobilisation of the APC Presidential Campaign Council.
He is currently serving as the special adviser to Governor Sanwo-Olu on culture and tourism.
Bisola Olusanya
Another youthful member of the group, Bisola Olusanya, is the current commissioner for agriculture in Lagos State.
Governor Sanwo-Olu appointed her in 2020, making her the first female commissioner for agriculture in the state’s history. She is also the youngest.
She was initially appointed the special adviser to the governor on agriculture in 2019.
An architect, Olusanya, 40, joined Olam International where she rose to become a regional sales manager, leading the company’s marketing and supply operations in the region.
She entered Sanwo-Olu’s cabinet after spending nearly a decade in the private sector.
Olusanya and Aregbe are regarded by Sanwo-Olu’s associates as among the new generation of political technocrats being groomed by the governor.
(The Africa Report)
